(Wall Street Journal) Elliot Kaufman - "For the first time today, the United Nations adopted a text condemning [Hamas] for its crimes and calling for its surrender and disarmament," French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot tweeted on Friday. "For the first time"? Why didn't the UN General Assembly condemn Hamas's massacre before? Oct. 7, 2023, was almost two years ago. Was there any doubt about what happened that day? No, the Hamas death squads live-streamed it. Was the UN too busy with other matters? No, the UN General Assembly voted down a condemnation of the Oct. 7 massacre 20 days after the fact. Canada had proposed it but was unable to muster majority support - 55 states voted against it, with 23 abstentions. The way the General Assembly finally condemned the massacre on Friday is also instructive. It passed a resolution endorsing the French-led "New York Declaration" from July, which condemns the massacre only as part of a moral equivalence. In other words, Hamas is only as bad as Israel, and perhaps not even. The declaration's emphasis is on committing to create a Palestinian state. Coming as a result of the war Hamas started, Israelis and Palestinians alike consider this a reward to Hamas.
2025-09-18 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive